Introduction

Why Search the Dawes Rolls?

The Dawes Rolls, also known as the "Final Rolls", are the lists of
individuals who were accepted as eligible for tribal
membership in the
"Five Civilized Tribes": Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles.
(It does not include those whose applications were
stricken, rejected or judged as doubtful.)
Those found eligible for the Final Rolls were entitled to an
allotment of land, usually as a homestead.

The Rolls contain more than 101,000 names from 1898-1914 (primarily from 1899-1906).
They can be searched to discover the enrollee's name, sex, blood degree,
and census card number.
The census card may provide additional genealogical information, and
may also contain references to
earlier rolls, such as the 1880 Cherokee census.
A census card was generally accompanied by an "application jacket". The jackets
then sometimes
contain valuable supporting documentation, such as birth and death affidavits,
marriage licenses, and correspondence.

Today these five tribes continue to use the Dawes Rolls as the basis for determining tribal
membership. They usually require applicants to provide
proof of descent from a person who is listed on these rolls.
(
Contact the tribes directly for
enrollment information).

Before You Start

Before you can effectively use the online index to
find a person in the Final Rolls, you need to know:

If you do not know the person's tribe: you can look for clues in the
1900 Census:

For those Indians living in predominantly Indian areas, there were
special Indian schedules in the 1900 Census identifying one's tribe and parent's tribes.
For those Indians living among the general population, only one's color
or race was designated, such as Indian or white, etc.

If your ancestor's tribe is not identified in the 1900 Census, once you find where your ancestor was
living, you can consult books such as The Indian Tribes of North America,
by John R. Swanton, for information on the tribes living in each state. Other
good sources are A Guide to the Indian Tribes of Oklahoma, by Muriel H.
Wright, and The Indians of Texas, by W.W. Newcomb, Jr., for tribes in those
areas.
Read
more.

Digital copies of the 1900 Census are available through many free and subscription-based genealogy websites.

Will Rogers and his wife, 1935.

Will's application to the Dawes Commission in 1900 was accepted, and he was enrolled as a member of the Cherokee Nation.

About the Dawes Rolls

The Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes was appointed by President Grover Cleveland
in 1893 to negotiate land with the
Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole tribes.
It is called the Dawes Commission, after its chairman, Henry L. Dawes, but the "Final Rolls of the
Citizens and Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory".

Tribe members were entitled to an allotment of land, in
return for abolishing their tribal governments and recognizing Federal laws.
In
order to receive the land, individual tribal members first had to
apply and be deemed eligible by the Commission.

The first application process for enrollment began in 1896, but was
declared invalid. So the Dawes Commission started all over again in 1898.
People had to re-apply in order to be considered, even if they had
already applied in 1896. The Commission accepted applications from 1898 until 1907, with a few additional people accepted by an Act of Congress in 1914.

The resulting lists of those who were accepted as eligible became known as the Dawes Rolls.